1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor devices, and to fabrication processes and devices such as multijunction solar cells based on III-V semiconductor compounds including a metamorphic layer. Such devices are also known as inverted metamorphic multijunction solar cells.
2. Description of the Related Art
Solar power from photovoltaic cells, also called solar cells, has been predominantly provided by silicon semiconductor technology. In the past several years, however, high-volume manufacturing of III-V compound semiconductor multijunction solar cells for space applications has accelerated the development of such technology not only for use in space but also for terrestrial solar power applications. Compared to silicon, III-V compound semiconductor multijunction devices have greater energy conversion efficiencies and generally more radiation resistance, although they tend to be more complex to manufacture. Typical commercial III-V compound semiconductor multijunction solar cells have energy efficiencies that exceed 27% under one sun, air mass 0 (AM0), illumination, whereas even the most efficient silicon technologies generally reach only about 18% efficiency under comparable conditions. Under high solar concentration (e.g., 500×), commercially available III-V compound semiconductor multijunction solar cells in terrestrial applications (at AM1.5D) have energy efficiencies that exceed 37%. The higher conversion efficiency of III-V compound semiconductor solar cells compared to silicon solar cells is in part based on the ability to achieve spectral splitting of the incident radiation through the use of a plurality of photovoltaic regions with different band gap energies, and accumulating the current from each of the regions.
Typical III-V compound semiconductor solar cells are fabricated on a semiconductor wafer in vertical, multijunction structures. The individual solar cells or wafers are then disposed in horizontal arrays, with the individual solar cells connected together in an electrical series circuit. The shape and structure of an array, as well as the number of cells it contains, are determined in part by the desired output voltage and current.
In satellite and other space related applications, the size, mass and cost of a satellite power system are dependent on the power and energy conversion efficiency of the solar cells used. Putting it another way, the size of the payload and the availability of on-board services are proportional to the amount of power provided. Thus, as the payloads become more sophisticated and consume more power, the efficiency and mass of the solar cells, which act as the power conversion devices for the on-board power systems, become increasingly more important.
Inverted metamorphic solar cell structures such as described in M. W. Wanlass et al., Lattice Mismatched Approaches for High Performance, III-V Photovoltaic Energy Converters (Conference Proceedings of the 31st IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Jan. 3-7, 2005, IEEE Press, 2005) present an important conceptual starting point for the development of future commercial high efficiency solar cells. The structures described in such reference present a number of practical difficulties relating to the appropriate choice of materials and fabrication steps, for a number of different layers of the cell.
Prior to the inventions described in this and the related applications noted above, the materials and fabrication steps disclosed in the prior art have not been adequate to produce a commercially viable and energy efficient inverted metamorphic multijunction solar cell using commercially established fabrication processes.